Soap bars are mainly used for washing. In common with other consumer goods, they are distributed from a soap producer to the end user through sale points, but are also marketed as gift products in decorative packaging, or used as sales promotion products distributed free of charge to hotel customers, travel agents' clients and the like. As an advertising or sales promotion product, there is a significant value to the soap decoration as well as to the permanency of the advertised message and its effect on the user. Until now the advertising message has generally been transmitted as a printed text on the soap package, and sometimes also as an engraving on the body of the soap bar.
Soap packaging is generally disposable and therefore discarded upon the first use of the soap. Engraving on the body of the soap is also swiftly erased by erosion and melting of the soap particularly in view of the abrasive nature of its use. Furthermore, engraving is useful only for logo or large size character imprinting, and is inappropriate for small size characters that cannot easily be read on a soap bar, when both characters and bar are the same color.
There is also known in the art a multicolor soap, wherein a wording or a logo is imprinted in the body of the soap by soap segments of a different color.
Known prior art discloses detailed printing that can be imprinted on the surface of a soap bar and last throughout soap use. It therefore may be of interest to soap producers as well as to advertisers to have the ability to imprint detailed items including full color pictures and small size characters on the surface of a soap bar.
There is numerous teaching in the literature for teaching process for marking indicia on a surface. An example of such teaching is U.S. Pat. No. 6,677,296 to Bonsall (referred hereinafter as '296). Patent '296 disclose washing tablets of compacted particulate washing composition which are marked with indicia on their surfaces. The indicia is preferably being of a contrasting color. Patent '296 also discloses processes for applying the markings are also described, as is a combination of the marked tablets with a packaging system.
Patent '296 claims a process for marking indicia on the surface of a tablet of compacted particulate washing composition, characterized in that the indicia are applied by a non-contact marking technique, in which the non-contact marking technique comprises ink-jet printing or laser marking.
Another example of such teaching is EP application no. 1167508 to Duncan (referred hereinafter as '508). Application '508 relates to a cleaning tablet comprising active cleaning components such as water-softening builder and/or bleaching agent, the tablet having an external surface, wherein a design is printed onto at least an area of the external surface. Application '508 also relates to a process for the manufacture of a cleaning tablet, the cleaning tablet comprising active cleaning components such as water-softening builder and/or bleaching agent, the tablet having an external surface, whereby the process comprises the step of printing a design onto at least an area of the external surface.